Often, it is desirable to protect sensitive electronic equipment or components against unauthorized access. For example, electronic systems or components used for civilian applications can contain sensitive, proprietary information that needs to be protected against unauthorized access. For example, financial institutions and corporations use computerized systems to protect sensitive information (for example, personal data, customer data, financial data, financial transaction authorization codes, authentication procedures, security passwords, etc.). Such sensitive information may be stored in alterable semiconductor memory devices (e.g., flash memory device, EPROM, EEPROM, PROM, RAM, DRAM, etc.) or memory components of integrated circuits. A compromise in the security of the sensitive data contained in such memory devices or integrated circuits can result in significant tangible and intangible losses to the financial institutions and corporations, such as, for example, financial losses, losses due to fraudulent transactions, business losses, losses due to compromised customer lists and financial data, losses of institutional or corporate integrity, losses of commercial confidence, and losses due to adverse publicity.
One way in which an intruder might attempt to gain unauthorized access to sensitive information or structures in electronic equipment or components is by physically accessing the electronic equipment or components involved. For example, an intruder may attempt to gain physical access to sensitive electronic equipment by opening or removing a wall of the enclosure (for example, a chassis wall) for the electronic equipment, or gain physical access to sensitive data in an electronic component (for example, flash memory, integrated circuit, etc.) by creating a portal through or removing the encapsulant surrounding the component or assembly in order to expose the interconnect and/or address busses in the component. If such an attempted intrusion is successful, the intruder can observe and learn about the sensitive features in the electronic equipment, or reverse engineer the electronic components in order to access the sensitive data via the exposed interconnect and/or address busses in order to learn about and/or compromise the operations of the component or associated system.